So if considering Suboxone, you might wonder why you also
need to bother with addiction treatment – if a daily pill takes away
your cravings and withdrawal symptoms… what’s left to worry about?

But the truth is, by combining medication with
psychosocial therapies you greatly increase your odds of lasting success.

Without addressing your addictive tendencies and without
learning compensatory strategies to manage the brain changes associated with
addiction, you’ll likely relapse once off Suboxone – or if you stay on Suboxone
over the long-term, you’ll just get addicted to something else (cocaine,
alcohol, etc.)

Read on to learn more about:

Why you need counseling as well as medication – and what you
can expect to learn from counseling and other behavioral therapies

Why you don’t just ‘trade addictions’ when initiating
Suboxone therapy

The long-term risks associated with cold-turkey opioid detox

How to get the most out of your Suboxone therapy

Your eligibility for Suboxone

If Suboxone alone could do the job, you wouldn’t likely see
the manufacturer (Reckitt Benckiser) recommending Suboxone as only one part of a
complete treatment plan that should also include counseling and behavioral
therapy.2

6 Essential Benefits of Addiction Treatment

Why medication alone isn't enough...

Medications can reduce cravings and withdrawal
symptoms to a manageable level. They help you stabilize and focus and they greatly increase your odds of lasting change - but as powerful as medications like Suboxone are, they're not a magic cure; you'll still need to work very hard.

Addiction causes brain changes that lead to compulsion and poor impulse control.3
These brain changes are lasting or permanent and they cause functional changes
to the way you think and feel. Fortunately, by learning coping strategies, such
as those taught in an addiction treatment program, you can learn to manage your
impulses and minimize your risks.

Whether you get intensive rehab care or join an intensive
outpatient group, most addiction treatment programs are designed to help you make difficult changes and to provide you
with certain necessary skills - here's a list of 6 essential benefits of participation:4

1. Sustaining Motivation

It’s normal to feel somewhat ambivalent about major life
change and to find that motivation waxes and wanes over time.

But when a temporary motivation dip can lead to relapse and
lasting consequences, it’s important to prepare for down-turns and make certain
that your long-term goals drive your day-to-day behaviors.

Motivational enhancement therapies help you overcome drug
ambivalence, identify personally relevant goals (what’s important to you –
not anyone else) - and teach skills that keep you focused on your long-term
objectives.

You need to identify negative habits and make a plan to replace these with more productive activities.

For example, you are more likely to maintain recovery by
getting out of the house and working/volunteering/going to school than you are
by hanging around all day with old drug-using friends.

4. Improve Frustration Tolerance and Problem Solving Ability

By letting small problems build into overwhelming obstacles
you increase the amount of frustration in your life. In the past you turned to
drugs or alcohol as a way to cope with frustration, what will you turn to now?

By learning better problem solving skills and by learning to
handle frustration and other negative emotions you increase your chances of
lasting recovery.

5. Build and Sustain Healthy and Supportive Relationships

Most people in active addiction behave in ways that diminish
the trust and solidity of important relationships. In addiction treatment you
may receive couples or family counseling to help repair past damage and to
rebuild healthier systems that support recovery.

You’ll also develop new sober friendships to replace the relationships you
lose when changing your lifestyle.

6. Improve Your Community Functioning

Through addiction treatment programs you gain access to
volunteer, educational and vocational programs that get you out into the community
in a positive way.

Suboxone: 5 Secrets to Success

Research shows that opioid substitution therapy (methadone and
Suboxone) is superior to all other forms of detoxification on outcomes such as
decreasing drug use and sticking with treatment, but still, not everyone finds
what they need from Suboxone therapy.1 Here are some steps you can take to
improve your odds of success.

Beyond getting addiction treatment you can also improve your
odds of success with Suboxone by:5

Committing to comprehensive treatment (some combination of
medication and counseling/behavioral therapies) for an adequate and appropriate
length of time. There are no quick fixes to addiction, and though you may choose to skip counseling and taper off Suboxone quickly, this
approach increases your risks of relapse.

Getting your family and other supportive loved-ones involved
in your treatment process.

Spending some time once stabilized on Suboxone also dealing with
other physical or mental health disorders requiring treatment. Unmanaged
illness increases your relapse risk.

Committing to a program that uses drug testing. Drug screening gets you help fast after a slip-up
and provides you with extra motivation to remain abstinent.

An end to drug seeking behaviors (this allows you the time
and energy needed to start rebuilding your life).

Reduced or eliminate opiate cravings.

Shouldn't You Feel Some Pain?

Detox pains don’t help people avoid relapse.

Extreme withdrawal symptoms can predispose you to mental declines down the road.

Some people wonder if using Suboxone to avoid/delay and
minimize opiate withdrawal symptoms is akin to running from the consequences of
your actions – sort of like cheating.

Don’t you need to suffer a bit through withdrawal so you won’t
fall back into old habits – doesn’t the memory of all that pain help you stay
on the straight and narrow?

OK, here the thing about addiction and brain diseases –
things that sound good and make sense aren’t necessarily true or effective. While
the idea of negative reinforcement makes intuitive sense, there is overwhelming
evidence against its effectiveness as a deterrent – and you can see how poorly
unassisted detox worked by looking at the relapse rates of those put through
cold-turkey detoxes at federal hospitals through the mid part of
last century – close to 100% relapse rates.7

So withdrawal discomfort does not help people maintain abstinence.
The forces that lead to relapse emerge out of addiction-caused changes to brain
structure and to diminished impulse control, memory and planning.
Discomfort isn’t teaching, it’s just unpleasant.

So there’s no real benefit to enduring opioid
withdrawal discomfort, but according to research presented this month (November
2013) difficult opioid withdrawal symptoms may cause long-term harm.

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center studied
the brains of animals either maintained on morphine or maintained on morphine
and then forced into withdrawal.8

The Results

They found that animals forced through opiate withdrawal had
higher levels of neurotoxic cytokines and less of neuroprotective proteins,
like CCL5. Cytokines cause brain inflammation and impaired thinking and are
linked to conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Based on their findings, the researchers conclude that
cold-turkey withdrawal may be a causative factor in mental decline.

Take-Home

Cold-turkey withdrawal is unpleasant.

It does not help you maintain abstinence. It is actually
associated with significantly higher relapse rates.

Withdrawal may be toxic to the brain and may contribute to
mental declines.

Are You Eligible to Take Suboxone?

Suboxone combined with counseling and behavioral therapies
offers you an excellent chance at building long-term recovery, but are you eligible
to take this medication?

Suboxone might be right for you if:

You are opioid dependent

You are willing and able to follow dosing directions and
other instructions

You are able to understand an informed consent document and
willing to sign

You have no serious psychiatric illness that might
compromise your ability to comply with treatment directives

You are not allergic to buprenorphine or naloxone

You have no serious liver dysfunction, paralytic ileus or
acute respiratory distress

You are not pregnant (though pregnant women may be able to
take other substitution opiates, like methadone or Subutex)

The following factors may affect eligibility:

The concurrent abuse of other drugs or alcohol, particularly
a severe dependence on sedating drugs like benzodiazepines and alcohol